The core metaphor for developing cliological tool is that of memetics. In order to specify and implement tools for analysing and manipulating meme, a solid model of the structure of memes is required. Here is an provide an overview of such a model, or framework, that will be broken down and linked to specific methods and applications.
Cliotechnology and memetic engineering
What is engineering, in difference to other approaches (science, art, academia, applied science, technology)
Without getting bogged down with definitions or philosophical arguments, engineering and technology emphasise practical utility, while science and academia run for profound intellectual understanding and explanation. Ideally, there will be some overlap where theory and practice do inform each other but essentially, the scientist’s job is to figure out why things work and the engineers is to work out how to use that. Sometimes there is a particular of concerns and sometimes that is useful. Ivory towers enable academics to contemplate their stuff without the noise and pressure of demand. Workshops are not the place for naval gazing, intellectual repartee, and scholarly discipline. Understanding for understanding’s sake is not so satisfying to the engineer. Simply contributing to the corpus of knowledge seems of little use if it is never applied to good purpose. Theoreticians may feel the same in their heart of hearts, but doing something with it is a distraction, not their forte, and their work is there should engineers and industry take up the knowledge transfer. Admittedly, there is some snobbery on both sides that keep the two apart, but the key distinction is that of practical intentionality, actually seeing some real impact rather than just knowing more.
Memetics was inspired by the biology of genetics, applying life-science principles to cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is now emerging as a discipline in its own right. Much effort is focussed on understanding the psychological processes of imitation, the proliferation of cultural practice, the evolution of language and toolmaking. Memetics, as a theoretical contender, promotes the idea of a gene like replicator as implicated in the process of cultural evolution. This has been contentious, and to date has generated much-heated argument as an explanation. One of the main objections to meme theory is that it has produced much waffle, but little empirical evidence to back it up. A few thinkers have pondered on how memetics can be applied, but progress towards application has been stagnated by a paradox of clever arguments with few too many to take up the mantle (or garner funding) to do anything about it.
Why we need to do something about it.
But we cannot help but participate in culture, whether we like it or not. Culture influences us, and in turn, we influence culture. Furthermore, cultural maladaptations are real: we face serious social problems and it is our right, perhaps obligation, to remedy them. Cultural evolution is not just a dispassionate study; people’s lives, wellbeing and security depend upon the waves of change. It is possible to stand as voyeurs, building our theoretical understanding, contributing to the mass of academic papers, but cultural evolution, the dynamics of humanity, is happening now! It seems obscene to accumulate great knowledge and not put it to beneficial use, especially when it could be used given the incentive.
Of course, there are those who do have the incentive to influence culture, and they are many, perhaps to the extent of being all of us. Unfortunately, the partitioning between theoretical abstraction and how we go about our lives is in place. Understandings of cultural evolution have yet to permeate social reality; our interactions and emergent culture have yet greet knowledge transfer. This is unfortunate because culture is emerging through craft, without a scientific basis. Maladaptations are likely. However, applying our understanding of cultural evolutionary theory to real-world culture can avert maladaptation. Of course, we should approach this point with deep caution, but it is time to move from theory to practice; from science to engineering; from passive observation to active intervention, and begin to address social ills and build better cultures.
Maybe “cultural engineering” is too abrupt a term for some. The device of the of the meme-gene parallel extends the metaphor of genetics, where knowledge of the underlying code of life is promising medical benefits, and perhaps threats. Engineering is drawn over the Haeckealian bridge, and no less a term will do. Genetic engineering is a thing; so too will be memetic engineering for better or worse.
Rebutting the metaphor of the meme or the possibility of cultural engineering is intellectually facile. It is an academic fillibuster, delaying empirical investigation and application of cultural science. That utility demands thorough understanding is a myth, however. A complete understanding will never be attained, but that has never deterred us humans from building our artefacts or using what nature has granted us. Long before Newton, Einstein or Higgs, Roman engineers were constructing aqueducts. We are now on the countdown to missions to Mars, yet we know very little about how gravity really works. For engineering, the explanans is secondary to the explanandum. Aristotle had it that all bodies move towards their natural place. While this classical explanans may seem quaint in today’s narrative, to modern civil engineers it matters little whether gravity is accounted for by a prime mover. Engineers are concerned with the explanandum, the effect itself, leaving the explanans to the scientists, philosophers and other academics. Sure, better science leads to better engineering, but the value is upon a model that is best for getting the job done, rather than solely about “understanding”. Were physics to have been snarled up in theoretical dependency that has dogged memetics, then we might not have got as far as the wheel.
For engineering, models are optimised map for a purpose. A model that is (eg geological survey, or roadmap) omits most of the unnecessary detail which would distract or clutter, and focuses on what is important. Such models deliberately delete, distort and generalise; they are metaphors that do not attempt to convey the whole truth. They necessarily filter out what is extraneous to their needs and, by elevating the “signal-to-noise” ratio, attain their utility. Cultural evolutionary theory attempts to provide an explanans, and that is important. However, demanding a full account before attempting using this stuff is an impediment and allows unnecessary social ills to persist where they could be sorted. Rather for culture, a sufficient, even if not optimal, model, one which concentrates on the explanandum, but with a watchful eye on the explanans, would progress empiricism and application beyond the current state of stagnation. A model for cliotechnology and RME (or Recombinent Memetic Engineering) is proposed, and in the vein of cultural evolution is not presented as fait accompli, but rather as an “aunt sally“: a prototype to throw things at so as to incite variation and selective retention.
What is cliotechnology and memetic engineering
Cliotechnology attempts to understand and apply the principles and processes of cultural dynamics; mapping historical and current patterns, forecasting potential trajectories and providing intervention strategies to steer culture with adaptive (non-maladaptive) intent. Cultural evolution and the idea of memetics dovetails into these aspirations. Working with the principle that memes are the “genes” of culture, then a parallel with genetic engineering, memetic engineering (or RME) is apt in specifying the “genes” of culture, the memeplexes, or as termed here for disambiguity “cliomes”.
Cliotechnology aims at an engineering methodology for intentionally applying knowledge of cultural evolution and changing cultural practice for widespread human benefit: from mundane tasks like sales and marketing to the grand challenges that our species faces. This methodology is principled on a framework, and information technology facilitates this by offering software tools required to acquire and process large and complex data sets.
The underlying theories involve the analysis of data and synthesis of knowledge. As a framework for engineering these processes are perhaps better thought of as disassembly and assembly. There are similarities to deconstruction and construction of Derrida, but rather than a philosophical activity, the processes of the emerging technology are intended to be precision techniques. Disassembly tears down cultural objects into their identifiable components (memes and so on); assembly rebuilds these components into novel forms. To say that a cultural object is an assembly of components, fosters an engineering paradigm especially when we consider the memetic substrate as a form of code. This paradigm opens the field for adopting software engineering methodologies in specifying and building cultural forms, and for practical tooling, as actual software support for manipulation of in silicio simulations.
A framework that supports precision assembly and disassembly techniques ultimately should support programmability. That is a library of well-built reusable library classes that can be manipulated digitally. A coherent model is therefore needed for engineering; one that facilitates methodology and automated techniques. To encourage evolvability the proposed “Grand Framework” (working title) is version controlled using the SemVer convention: the present pre-release is version 0.1.0.
A model of a meme
Memes have been talked about extensively, but so far no standardised model of a meme exists. A “Grand Framework” that supports the disassembly, reassembly and programmability require a model of a meme, its sub-components, and the higher modules that memes assemble into. This model should possess mathematical rigour, but pure mathematics tends to be abstract, focussing on coherence rather than manipulation of objects as applied to the real-world. Mathematics tends to be cryptic to non-mathematicians, but the focus of an engineering model of a meme is to illuminate and allow us to apprehend and mentally (or computationally) manipulate cultural representations. The focus then is upon the salient features of memes that we can use, rather than a detached abstraction. The symbolism would be that of a visual calculus that allows us to easily see what is going on, and to experiment by moving around the symbols. The principle would be more like a markup language emanating from computer science than of how mathematicians might represent the notions. Such a calculus, or markup-language would emphasise the behaviour of a meme: expression and replication. It would provide a notation for human action, essentially drawing from Contextual Behavioural Science.
Within the Grand Framework, this model of a meme is called the meme framework. It can be used in many applications such as cliology, as a method for intervention on cultural maladaptations, and Recombinant Meme Engineering, as a tool for reassembling memes from their fragments. The reconstruction of evolutionary trees of culture using methods such as cladistics or phenetics, for example, require a means of encoding culture. The meme framework (and other proposed frameworks) are devised to provide an unambiguous data schema whereupon the required computations can be performed.
Metaphors of viewing a meme
All models are metaphors, but some metaphors are more representative of what they carry, and fruitful to some intent. The memetic metaphors of the “virus of the mind”, or of “gene of culture” are good candidates as in biology, vectorology and genetic modification have a scientific basis and are transitioning into beneficial engineering technologies. Another strong candidate is the “film reel” visualisation (which is particularly valuable for taxonomising narrative cinema). In a more general sense, memes can be seen as effective narratives, or in the “film reel” imagery as instructional videos that convey a “how to” in certain situations. Furthermore, film appreciates literary adaptation and reboots, which are very much cultural phenomena.
Genetic modification, in dealing with molecular sequences, has some similar language to film processing: editing, transcription, cleaving (cut), splicing and so on. The operations in the laboratory are not dissimilar to that of the cutting room (or post-production suite nowadays). The film editor’s job is to assemble the footage into a sequence that expresses the film script’s narrative in a way that it will be well received by an audience. The operations involved are those of cutting and splicing scenes: editing to get “best” cut. Originally, movies were made from rapid sequences of stills, a length of film cells, to create the illusion of animation. These were spooled from a film-reel, pulling the cells via sprocket holes in the film strip. Modern digital techniques have preserved much of the terminology if not the technology.
For memetics then, there is a blend of these metaphors: of genetics and of a mechanism for storytelling. A meme then, is like a script, one that has made it through many adaptations; folk-tales are a prime example. They are also a bit like genes in that they are an evolving and manipulable code for something that is expressed. On the other hand, they are also like a film as a sequence of shots that form an efficient narrative that can be cut and spliced. Of course, such imagary are just metaphors to help us think. Memes and memeplexes are neither a sequence of base pairs, nor a sequence of photographic images in reality, but rather some other means of encoding. The Grand Framework has introduced the term “cliome” to circumvent the misuse of the term meme. A cliome is a notation sequence of loci that indicates the presence or absence of traits in the expressed cultural object (clion). It is a trait-per-trait representation of the clion, a portrait, that is amenable to digital encoding and processing. The film metaphor would be where a section of narrative has been “portrayed” in a scene. The actors would have performed their portrayals of characters, in that the form of their actions have been per-form of the script. Taking film, as an extension of the performing and recording arts further, then a collection of portraits might be called a gallery, which would concur its association with that of museum (particularly the muse of clio as the recorder of history and fame).
[cliome trait and portrait and gallery table]
Cliomes, as portraits, are exhibited in the gallery of culture; they are performances and recordings that can be digitalised, copied and replayed. Digitisation also makes both analytical and manipulation methods possible. One form of analysis, taxonomy, would see any cliome as a taxon. Cultural Linneanaism then might be applied to such digital representations. Each digital representations in a gallery, a collection of cultural Linnean information objects (clions or clia) would further enable phenetic and cladistic reconstruction methods. The collection of portraits in a gallery then would provide a source for trait tracing and clustering whereupon we could begin to discern patterns, and specific adaptations at particular trait loci. We would be able to visualise the unfolding of cultural evolutionary patterns.
Anatomy of meme
The framework for engineering memes should take into account those things that make for a meme, as well as the decomposition and assemblies of memes. A more detailed treatment is given elsewhere, but in essence, the framework should:
- model a meme’s replication mechanisms and strategems.
- deal with such functional contextural behaviour for efficient (executable) memes
- assemble memes hierarchically into cliomes
- decompose into the organs of a meme
Other considerations include:
- Container (matryoshka) theory, which is a taxonomy of what can carry what. Examples include a seed pod that carries the genes for a plant, and a missile that carries a payload.
- Demes (vs meme) which are marked by individuals, or adherents to a particular memeplex.
- The interaction of memes and demes, for example, a “trellis” which mapping two trees.
- other concepts such as: explication, extruction, extricability, miscibility, encapsidation
- practicalities of engineering memes within this framework, including processes such as: scooping, recombining, simulating, dissemination and so on.